The prime directive of wills law is to honor a testator's intent. As a result, lawmakers take pains to populate the field with majoritarian default rules: those that fill gaps in an estate plan with principles that reflect the wishes of most property owners. However, this Article exposes a phenomenon that undermines these efforts. Using an original, hand-collected dataset of 230 recently probated ... (see full summary)

FREE EXCERPT

663

Boilerplate and Default Rules in Wills

Law: An Empirical Analysis

Reid Kress Weisbord * & David Horton**

ABSTRACT: The prime directive of wills law is to honor a testator’s intent.

As a result, lawmakers take pains to populate the field with majoritarian

default rules: those that fill gaps in an estate plan with principles that reflect

the wishes of most property owners. However, this Article exposes a

phenomenon that undermines these efforts. Using an original, hand-collected